#376 – Maximizing Earnings with the Amazon Influencer Program: Strategies & Secrets Revealed

#376 - Maximizing Earnings with the Amazon Influencer Program: Strategies & Secrets Revealed with Liz Saunders Speaker 1: Happy New Year and welcome to episode 376 of the AM-PM Podcast. Today my guest is Liz Saunders. Liz is the creator of Fluencer Fruit, a tool that helps people get videos onto listings. You can use this as a seller. You can use this as a creator to make a side hustle. It's an amazing opportunity. We're going to talk all about how it works from both the seller's point of view and if you've got someone in your family that might be looking to make a little bit of extra cash on the side. How they can get involved as well. It's a great thing. We talked about this in the Billion Dollar Sellers newsletter a few months ago. Hopefully you saw that. BillionDollarSellers.com. But we're going to go into deep detail today. Enjoy this episode with Liz. Unknown Speaker: Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast. Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast, where we explore opportunities in e-commerce. We dream big and we discover what's working right now. Plus, this is the podcast where money never sleeps. Working around the clock in the AM and the PM. Are you ready for today's episode? Speaker 2: I said, are you ready? Let's do this. Unknown Speaker: Here's your host, Kevin King. Speaker 1: Liz Saunders, welcome to the AM PM podcast. It's great. You're kicking off the new year. You're the first one of the new year of the new 2024. How cool is that? Speaker 2: I love it. Happy New Year. Speaker 1: That's right. Everybody's making resolutions this time of year. Like I'm going to do this and do that and exercise and I'm going to make some money and pay off some bills. I'm going to do some whatever the resolution may be. And I think we've got some pretty amazing stuff to talk to them today about that actually might help some of these people really possibly make a big difference in their life. Is that fair? Speaker 2: I think that's fair. I love it. Speaker 1: So, just for people that haven't heard of you, you've not been a stranger to this business. You were with Jungle Scout for quite some time, right? Like six years or something like that? Is that correct? Speaker 2: Yep. I was at Jungle Scout for six years and before that I was a seller. So, been around for a minute. Speaker 1: Awesome. When did you actually start selling on Amazon? Speaker 2: 2016. So I have a sad story. I launched right before they changed incentivized written terms of service. Speaker 1: October 3rd, 2016. That date is like... Everybody knows Pearl Harbor Days in the U.S. is December 7th. In the Amazon space, everybody knows October 3rd, 2016. That was D-Day. Speaker 2: Yep. So I think we launched in August of 2016. So we were gearing up and I was ready to make all this money like all my friends. I was watching make a lot of money. And yeah, we launched disposable rain ponchos for children. And we were just, you know, sending out all our incentivized written review requests and then Amazon changed terms of service. And so we had to regroup with the rest of the Amazon sellers pretty quickly. Speaker 1: Were you able to actually get launched or did it just kind of crash and burn? Speaker 2: Actually, it was, it did get launched, we got up to about, I think we'd gotten like, let's call it 10 incentivized reviews when the terms changed. And then we were able to kind of like recover with everybody we got like backup. But then every time there was a sweep, they would like pull more of our reviews, even though they were not incentivized. But kind of the nail in the coffin was, I think a competitor made a report questioning our authenticity. And it was kind of one of those things where it was like, is this worth fighting right now? And at the time, for me, it was not. So we shifted gears. Speaker 1: So for those of you that weren't around selling in 2016, what we're talking about is one of the ways to launch a product. In the early days, there were companies like Zonblast and Viral Launch and I Love to Review and those kinds of companies. And Keith has been on the podcast just a few weeks ago. We were talking about some of the old days of I Love to Review. So what Amazon will allow you to do is you could create a 100% off coupon on Amazon And send that coupon out to a group of people. Some of these were Facebook groups, some of these were companies. They were allowed to go buy your product using that coupon at 100% discount. And then they could write, as a result of getting the product, Amazon allowed them to write a review, as long as they put a disclaimer in there that said something to the effect of, I've received this product in exchange for my honest opinion or something like that. And that was the way people launched. So you could get to the top of page one, Instantly and overnight on Amazon by just blasting these things. And on October 3rd, 2016, Amazon said, this is absolutely not allowed anymore. And they started just taking massive reviews off that had been doing that. And so everybody had to pivot. And then it became a lot of black hat stuff with 2017, 2018. A lot of people were buying stuff out of India and China. These reports are like the back end of people's PPC accounts. And there's all this shady business going on to try to get this data, figuring out what to launch. And then that Amazon clamped down on that and some of the tools actually were able to start doing some of that stuff. Amazon opened up some of their API, Jungle Scout, Helium 10, some of the bigger tools were able to start grabbing some of that. And then it went to search, find, buy, where people were doing rebates and buy the product and we'll give you your money back and pay some service company five to 20 bucks for facilitating it. And then you could launch and then Amazon said, no more of that. But that still happens a little bit. Now there's a new method that a lot of people are using. Some people use Vine and some people use other stuff, but one of the new ones is affiliates actually, where people are going to affiliates and they're saying, we'll give you 100% affiliate commission in exchange for featuring this on your channel. So these affiliates Well, like, heck yeah, I'll take 100% commission. And so they push the heck out of it. Instead of going to them and say, I'll give you a hundred bucks to post this, say, I'll give you a hundred percent of what you sell for the next two weeks. And they're pushing it like crazy. And it's a really smart strategy that's working for some people. That's a hot new thing. We just did a podcast on that a couple of weeks ago. So if you haven't heard that, go back and listen to David Katz's podcast. How did you get involved in this other project that we're going to talk about here in just a second? Speaker 2: Yeah, so a friend of mine called me and she's like, you love all things Amazon and all the ways that you can make money. I've found this new program called Amazon Influencer. You should come try it. And so that was almost two years ago now and have learned a lot, obviously, and had a good time. But it's a fascinating other way that you can have a side hustle or a full-time income on Amazon. So, yeah. Speaker 1: There's so many ways you can... It's interesting you say there's so many ways you can make money off of this Amazon ecosystem. It's amazing. I remember the guys from Amazing.com who's based here in Austin as well. They were the people that basically started this whole kind of industry that we're doing selling FBA. I mean, they were the ones that really popularized it and put it out there with their courses and a lot of the OGs. That's how they got started with that. And they would do events, but they never went to other events. Mike and Matt and some of the other guys, Jason, they never actually went to other events. They just did their event. And I remember Just last year, early in March of last year at the Prosper Show in Vegas, Matt and Mike both went out there and they were walking around just And I went up to him and said, uh, nice to see you guys here. I'm surprised you came out and said, yeah, we wanted to come check it out. It's like, you see what you created here at this whole ecosystem around selling on Amazon. And most of us know either wholesale or FBA, but there's so many other ways. There's Kindle publishing and affiliate commissions and influencer this, and there's like 15 different ways to make money off of this Amazon game. And so what is the, a lot of, when you say the influencer program, a lot of people are like, Oh, what's that mean? Is that some person on Tik TOK? You're going out and you're paying someone 200 bucks and they're pitching your product and saying go buy it on Amazon. We're talking about something a little bit different though, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's interesting. A couple years ago, Amazon created, it's an offshoot of the affiliate program. So when it was originally formed, it was just the storefront. So you as an affiliate were approved for this influencer program and you had a storefront. So if you posted shoppable videos, you could upload it and your content would be on Amazon with So you could send people for recommendations, right? Speaker 1: So if I was a TikTok person, I would create a video on TikTok with some product and I would put a link to Amazon and that would actually go to my own, almost like a Shopify store on Amazon in a way. It's like my own personal storefront. These are my 10 featured products. Speaker 2: Right. So you would have wish lists, right? So like the Instagram account that I got approved with is basically like a food diary of whole 30 foods, right? And so like if I was promoting to my audience, it gave me a way to say, here are my top five cookbooks. Go check them out on Amazon so I could link over and it would have them all in one place. Right. So that's how it started. And then about two years ago, Amazon started opening up this ability to do shoppable content, specifically the shoppable videos. And it's a little bit different because it, because of where it started for influencers, now where we are in the influencer program, shoppable videos, you upload into the Amazon like storefront. And then Amazon places them in different spots, including the product listing, search results, um, inspire and discover feed. And then influencers. Now, of course it becomes its whole, its own ecosystem where now you get paid. If somebody watches your content on Amazon, And then Mike makes a buying decision. And what that means is they're not necessarily driving traffic. They can be affiliates and influencers, but the Influencer Program specifically, you get paid for your content that's on Amazon, seen by shoppers, and then they make a buying decision. Speaker 1: So how's this different than the old video shorts? In the old days, there was video shorts where even as a brand, I could upload my own little videos, put in what ASIN that's related to, and I could even put in sometimes a competitor's ASIN if I want to do like a comparison. And then Amazon would show that. At one point, they were testing it in the feeds, and then another, this was years ago. And then another time they would show up down on the bottom, like other videos from this seller or whatever, or other people. This is different than that though, right? I just want to make sure everybody listening understands that this is not the same thing as the shorts. Speaker 2: Yeah. So brands can obviously upload product videos and they have a lot of the same placements. So if you have an ASIN with, you know, whatever, a yoga mat and I, you as the brand owner upload a video and I as an influencer upload a video. There are carousels where we both can live, right? So there's an upper carousel where you unlock if you're brand registered, have a product video. That has six spaces in it that are only available to you as the brand and me as an influencer, right? Speaker 1: When you say carousel, just to make sure people understand, is this in the seven images that are nine images spots, or is this below that, a special place? What, just to make sure we're clear. Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. So in that seven images, If you're brand registered and upload a product video, it creates a video carousel in that seven image carousel. Speaker 1: In the seventh spot, the last spot that shows, right? Speaker 2: Yep. Speaker 1: So that can be... So you can have more than one video in a... So if they click the first video, what is it? It opens up and shows them a carousel, if there's more than one there? Speaker 2: Correct. Speaker 1: Versus in the past, it would just be one video there and then the rest would be down in the shorts area or somewhere else on the page. Speaker 2: Correct. Yep, correct. Speaker 1: So those videos that are in that carousel, they have to be uploaded by the brand or they can be uploaded by the brand and an influencer? Speaker 2: The first one has to be the brand in order to even create the carousel. But once the brand opens it with at least one product video, then the others can all be influencers. It can be five, basically. Speaker 1: Five videos in that spot. Speaker 2: There are six total for the carousel, but one has to be the brand. So then if you've got one brand, you can have five influencers. Speaker 1: Okay, so if a brand, if I have my yoga mat and I uploaded my own video of my yoga mat, and I'm in this influencer program, and I can come in and create a second video, or I can create five videos if I want to, and put those talking about this person's yoga mat. And they will show up in that carousel. So the brands one shows up first, they always see that first. And then if they want to see more, they scroll to see more. So I can look at some brand that's done some foo-foo video that's horrible, that's just fancy and doesn't tell you anything. I can go and read the reviews or the comments or the attributes and actually do a proper video. And then if someone Buy that product after watching my video I get paid or after watching three seconds of it, or how does that work? Speaker 2: That's a great question. So Amazon hasn't told us. We believe that it's last touch attribution. So let's say there are five influencer videos on there. We believe that it's the last one they watch before they make the buying decision. And it used to be that as long as the video was over 30 seconds, that it was kind of like a little flexible, I guess, on like how much people could watch. But then they started pushing for vertical shorts. And so now there's not actually any stated guidelines around watch time in order to count for a sale. So right now we're kind of guessing. Speaker 1: What's a vertical short? Speaker 2: So a vertical short, as opposed to like if I shoot most of my videos horizontally, so like Facebook, old school TV type thing, vertical shorts are more like an Instagram or TikTok style video, usually set to music. And Amazon started really like incentivizing and requesting that influencers create more of them when they launched the inspire feed in December of last year. I guess now it would be. Not this last December, but the one before. Speaker 1: So 22. So do my videos that I create for my yoga mat for you have a yoga mat. I create a video for it. I go in the second spot. Does that also go in the inspire feed or it only goes in that, that carousel spot? Speaker 2: It can go in the inspire feed. So Amazon controls 100% of placement. So like when I tag the yoga mat, I upload it to my storefront and then from there Amazon handles all of it. And so what we don't know is exactly why they're picking content for different placements. So, like, sometimes I'll upload a video for a product and I'll do a horizontal, like full review, talking about it, use cases, and then I'll do a vertical short, which is basically like I do my B-roll with some clips, some, you know, words over it and then upload it. I think where they're going is that verticals will go like that short social shopping stuff will move over to the inspire feed and that the like longer form will end up on the product listing page. That makes the most sense. But at the moment, verticals are also showing up on the product listing and full horizontals are also showing up in the inspire feed. Speaker 1: So if there's, if you have your brand video on your yoga mat, I come in, I make one. And then Timmy, my next door neighbor comes in and makes one. Does he go in line after me? He's the third one on the list or is Amazon decides based on some algorithm like who's watching which one they rotate those around? How does that work? Speaker 2: Yeah, they rotate it around and they do a decent amount of testing. So what we think they do is there's like a honeymoon period where if there's five other influencers already on the yoga mat, and I go ahead and create a video, there's obviously not like an open spot for me. But we have what seems to look like a honeymoon period where after about a week, they'll test me into the carousel. And what we think they're doing is testing conversion rates, right? So if I convert better than one of the other influencers were on there, I win the spot basically. Now we can't prove that, we're just guessing based on how Amazon rotates our videos. For example, I had a shade tent that I did a full video on how I set it up by myself because I'm 5'4". And, you know, I can't just like push the top of the tent up. So I did a walkthrough on how I set this up and take it down by myself in under two minutes, right? I lived in that carousel for almost 18 months, right? Speaker 1: Wow. Speaker 2: I think because I convert really well, I did over $5,000 in commission from just that one product. Anecdotally, it looks like they're looking at who converts well, and then you end up like staying in that spot. Now, they'll test me out of it, but then they bring me back. I think because whoever they're testing me against doesn't convert as well. Speaker 1: So if all six spots are full... And a seventh person comes in, they might get rotated in and someone gets kicked out. It's like the Premier League in Europe where the bottom two teams get kicked out every year and the top two of another league get moved up into the Premier League. It's kind of like that. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: All right. That's interesting. So what kind of commission is Amazon paying for your tent? Are they giving you like 1%, 2%? What are they paying you off of each sale? Speaker 2: So the influencer commission card is between one and four percent. Speaker 1: Depending on the category or. OK, so one to four percent of the sale you get and you believe it's if it's the last video that they watched before they. Added to what if I add to cart? I look at my add to cart and I have second thoughts, I'm like, well, maybe before I actually buy this, let me go back and watch a few more videos. Do they do you know if they track? Because your video might be the one that put me over the edge. You know, sometimes people have second doubts. So they're looking at the product and they're like, add to cart. And then they're like, oh, wait a second. And when they're in the shopping cart, it's $149. Let me just go make sure. And they go back and they watch three videos. And one of them is yours that put them over the top. But when they add the cart of somebody else's, there's no way to know how that- We don't know. Yeah, you don't know. Speaker 2: I mean, all of that makes sense, right? It would make sense if they went back and watched three more, that the last one that actually had them click on buy would be the one who got attribution. Speaker 1: So what's a good length to make these videos? Is there a best practices or what Amazon likes or what you found works best? Short, long, does it just play with it? Is there any magic to it? Speaker 2: Yeah, so if people are getting started, I recommend you play with it and see my like kind of my soapbox is whatever feels the most natural for you because you want to show up authentically and create value for the shopper. I will tell you for mine, my best performing videos are like five minutes and people watch like 60% of them, which is somewhat shocking to me. Right? But if you think about like I'm doing higher ticket items for those, I'm talking about how to set them up or how to install them or how I use them or those sorts of things. They are usually the products then that have a little bit more in way of like questions about people or people are spending a little bit more time considering that purchase because of the price point and those sorts of things. So my best performing are ticket items that are over $100 that I do like five or six minute videos on. Speaker 1: So if it's $100, you might if they end up buying off of you, that could be a dollar to four bucks that you get for that. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: You need a lot of people to make some make $5,000. You need a lot of people watching some videos. Speaker 2: But isn't that wild? How many people watched that video of me setting that tent up for me to clear that kind of cash out of a $4 commission? I think that one's six, but yeah. Speaker 1: That's awesome. Are you allowed to put your name or say your name in there? Can people, you get any residual benefit? They follow you on Instagram as a result of seeing you on Amazon or anything like that? Speaker 2: Yeah, so interestingly on our storefronts, so if you see like an influencer video anywhere on Amazon, next to our name it says earns commission, right? That's why we're compliant. You can actually click on our name. So like my Instagram that I got approved with is Liz on a journey. So that automatically pulled into my storefront name when I got approved with it. So, next to my name, wherever my videos show up, it says Liz on a journey. Now, if you click that and go to my storefront, it actually links to my Instagram account from there. So, do I get a ton of like people clicking through my video to my storefront to my socials? No, but it's there. Speaker 1: Are there any things you can't do? Can you compare like this? This yoga mat is way better than this other piece of junk one. Can you do those? Can you do comparison ones? Or do you have to keep it on on target on on message for this that one product? Speaker 2: No, you can actually tag, I think currently the limit is like 15 or 18, but if you tag, let's say 10, just as an easier number, if you tag 10 products, you're not eligible for page placement. So I couldn't be on your product listing talking about you and nine of your closest competitors, right? Like, or you, the yoga mat and my Traeger grill. Like I can't like do that. I can tag up to three ASINs and be eligible for placement on the product listing. But you can do comparisons and actually Amazon likes comparisons. So if they're like, buy these three yoga mats and then tell us which one you like and for what reason, the thing it does too for sellers is it cross promotes. Or, you know, good and bad, right? So if I'm promoting my yoga mat and your yoga mat in the same influencer video, it's eligible to be on both of our product listings, right? So if I talk about one yoga mat as being just totally better than the other, It does give like the sellers an opportunity to like give cross, basically to cross sell related products if they've got them or, you know, bring people from the competitor listing. Speaker 1: So if I have a yoga mat and a sweat towel, I don't know, I'm just making something up. I could have, and I'm the seller of these, I could have, if I'm an Amazon Influencer, I could do it or I could just have my wife or my kids or somebody do it on the side and say, hey, if you got this yoga mat, let's talk about it. But you know what, this towel is really cool too. It really wipes it down or absorbs the sweat or whatever. And then you're cross promoting. Um, so that's a good strategy for sellers actually. Oh, okay. And then you get on somebody else's listing and politely bash them saying how much better yours is. Speaker 2: Yeah. You have to be real careful. You want to make sure you're providing value for their shop. Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. That's what I mean. Politely. So are these reviewed by humans before they're approved or is it an algorithm that looks at them? Speaker 2: So I think it's a combination. Once you're into the program, there's a Like, second process to get approved for on-site placement. So basically, like when I attach my socials and do the approval, that's instantaneous. They're like, yes or no, your Instagram, TikTok, whatever, meets the qualifications. But then in order to be eligible to do the shoppable videos that can also live on the Yoga Mat product listing, I have to submit three videos and then there's an actual review process Before I get approved for that next step. And what it seems to be is that there's a combination between like an AI algorithm of sorts, like kind of scrubbing the videos, I don't know, combined with some human element of somebody's checking off on it. But then for the actual like approval for onsite, that seems a lot more manual because it takes When I got approved, it was like four weeks. Last spring, it was eight weeks sometimes for approval for that. So and then last summer, it was like three days. So you just never know. That one seems more manual, though. Speaker 1: So to get to get approved to be one of these, what's the correct term for this? Amazon, what's the correct term? Speaker 2: So, Amazon Influencer, who is approved for additional on-site placements? There's so many words. Speaker 1: An on-site Amazon Influencer or something like that. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's basically it. Speaker 1: Okay, so we got to delineate who we talk about. So, an on-site Amazon Influencer. Speaker 2: Yep. Speaker 1: To get approved for one of those, because I know like my trainer, he was asking me about this and I had heard some, I went to the internet marketing party in Austin last March. And there's a guy up on stage, talked for like 10 minutes. He said, anybody that's not doing this influencer stuff, you're an idiot. And I'm like, who's this guy? And then he's like, I made $13,000 the first month just by walking around my house, shooting some videos and posting them up on Amazon. I was like, what? And I got busy with some stuff and I didn't really follow up on, but then I had another friend who was doing this on the side. She just, just as a side hustle, she was making like two grand a month, just doing that, walking around her house. And she got to the point where she was buying stuff on Timu and then shooting it. And then for Amazon, she said that really didn't work because the products were slightly different and it kind of that idea, but that was her idea. Cause you got to buy these products or you got to get them somehow. Um, either the work deal with whoever has the product or, or you have to physically buy them. And so that's what she was doing. She's like, yeah, I'm making good money. But she said, it's a little bit of work, you know, I, and I don't know it's hit or miss some videos. I make 26 cents and I spent, you know, an hour messing with this thing. Other videos I make 200 bucks and you know, it took me five minutes. It's like, It's totally hit or miss. So this guy that was doing 13,000, I did a story in my newsletter a few months ago about this. And I showed a screenshot of one of the screenshots and because I didn't believe it. I met him at an event and I said, tell me how this works. And he's like, oh, here's on the spot. You know, he didn't doctor this. He like had had it ready. Sent it to me off his app. It was $13,000. He said that was from 200 videos that he created. He just sat down. He's a big affiliate marketer. And he had heard about this. He's like, I'm just going to give this a try and just see what the heck. How this works. So he went around and I don't know what his exact methodology was, but he said he had 200 videos, spent a week or something making them, put them up, first month, 13 grand in commissions. And I was like, how much have you made since then? How many videos do you have now? I said, no, I just did this as a test. I have bigger fish to fry. I'm making more money doing other stuff. I don't have time to do that. I just want to see what would happen. And those same 200 videos, this was a screenshot he showed me in November was 13 grand. The screenshot he showed me in January was seven grand. And the screenshot he showed me in September of 2023, end of September 2023 for the last 30 days was like $2,300. So from the same video, so I don't know what that all adds up to total, but probably in the neighborhood of 50 grand or more that he's made off of just making 200 videos. And so This is, I think, a great opportunity for, you know, a lot of us in this space, you're an Amazon seller and your spouse or your partner or your kids or something want to get involved. And you're like, man, this Amazon FBA thing is just too hard or just takes too much money or whatever. This is an awesome way, I think, to involve other people in your circle or your family and actually give them a shot. So when I heard about his story, I mentioned this a few months ago to my trainer. Because he was looking for his wife who just had a baby. She had gotten popular on TikTok, had some videos go viral and get like a crazy number of views, a million views or something. And she's like, how can I leverage this? Oh, you should be an influence. I heard about this guy and I didn't know all the details. So she went and applied and she got turned down. And we're trying to figure out why. And some people were saying, well, what's in your videos? And she's like, well, it's my baby doing cute things and whatever. And they're like, it's your face in there. Are you in there? She's like, no, it's my kid, mostly. And like, well, that's why you got turned down. It's because you need to show your face. Because they don't want someone abusing some kid or whatever. But there's a lot of people that say, I'm not so sure that that's actually true. Because there's been people that didn't show their face that got approved. Tip, the rule was I think a thousand, you need a thousand followers and some pretty decent engagement. And then other people say, no, you really need only 500. And then there's, you do need engagement. Amazon's looking to get approved to be in this program. They want to see engagement. And what, what is your, what, what is your interpretation of what's the best way to get approved to actually get into this program? Speaker 2: So, I think the description of like the chaos of that situation and how everybody's like, it's this, no, it's that, it's this is the perfect description of where we're at right now because they're really what Amazon says on the application page is you need an engaged audience on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or YouTube. Instagram and Facebook have to be a business page. It can't be like your personal one. And then that's it. They tell us there's no minimum number that they have, but that they're looking for engagement. And so anecdotally, what we've seen in all of the groups and everything else is people with like, 50 to 100 sometimes TikTok followers for like high engagement, get in and then people with like 100,000 followers on Facebook not get in, you know, and I think what Amazon is trying to do right is make sure That you are creating some content that they like, but then where it gets confusing is like your friend's wife who she's got a great, engaged TikTok audience and didn't get in. So if I had to hypothesize on hers, I am wondering if they are currently also Basically, applying their terms of service to how they're approving influencers. And what I mean by that is this, for an Amazon shoppable video, if you have a child under the age of 13, they cannot be in the video by themselves. An adult has to be in the video with them. Now my 15 year old, I can have them speak on video and it's not a big deal, right? I can post them. But under 13 requires an adult in the video for Amazon. So I wonder for your friend, I doubt it has anything to do with her being on camera or off. It has more to do with the fact that the baby's on camera with no adult. Speaker 1: That's a good point. Speaker 2: That would be my guess. That would be my guess. Speaker 1: And someone told me too, one of these guys said that the big thing that they're looking for, it's kind of like reverse engineering the A9 algorithm. We all sit here like, how does Amazon rank products? What do we got to do to game the system? It's kind of the same thing here. But they're saying that they're looking for, number one, there's four types of engagements. There's shares, which they consider number one in engagements. If someone shares it, that's the biggest sign. This kind of follows what Twitter and Facebook have come out and said recently as part of the EU case, where they had to kind of lay out how they're doing things for privacy reasons. But shares are number one. Saves are number two. So if you're posting social media, and this goes beyond just what we're talking about, you don't really want to tell people comment and like it. That's great. That helps. But what you want people doing is sharing it and saving it. And so I've seen people now. There's a guy, Funnel Hacking Live back in September and he posted something and it was pretty cool. He posted a little, it's a basic little video of him sitting in the corner and people walking by in the hallway ignoring him. He's like, I came here all this way to not network and I didn't meet anybody or something. Nobody wanted to talk to me. And he said, I bet nobody will even share this video. And all of a sudden, the thing is shared like crazy. People are commenting like, oh, sorry, man. Other people saw exactly what he was doing. They're like, dude, that was brilliant the way you did this to get this marketing. And so it's all a game in a way. But it's a game with numbers. And that's where you, when you left So, Jungle Scout, you started doing this a few years ago, you said, but as you're doing this, you're like, how can we figure out, this is two throwing darts against the wall to see what works. And I think you're onto something here and let's talk about that. So, what's the name of it? Speaker 2: It's called Fluencer Fruit. It's a Chrome extension. Speaker 1: So, Fluencer Fruit. Chrome, it says not Influencer Fruit, but just Fluencer. Starts with an F. Speaker 2: I'm an old school marketer. I like alliteration. Speaker 1: It's a Chrome extension so that when you're surfing on Amazon, you have this Chrome extension installed and just like Jungle Scout does or just like Helium 10 does with X-Ray, It will pop up and it will tell you a whole bunch of different things about every product on the page and it'll score it. And I think you said you're looking for a score of 70 or above is something that's ideal. And so it will score all these products. So you're not just randomly picking products. It will go in and do all this cool, amazing stuff. And so tell us, what does it actually do and how does it help you really pinpoint this is where the opportunities are? Speaker 2: Yeah, so you're right. Coming from big data, I got into this and I started seeing what was working and I was like, there are no tools. How are these people existing? You have to click in and out of every product listing every time you want to see what it has. I was like, no, we can do better than this. Because with every product or every program on Amazon where you're going to make money It's about product research. Like ultimately, if you're doing merch, you're doing KDP, whatever you're doing, right, it's about product research. And that's what people were doing, but just kind of like using the seller tools and trying to make them work. So, when I started creating content, it very quickly became clear to me that as an influencer, there were things on a product listing page that I could look at and say, that's going to help my video do better than another product listing. Specifically, that upper carousel is the number one thing that I look for, right? So, and then if it has an upper carousel, I want to make sure I'm one of the first and or only influencers on the listing. And so we went through and I took a bunch of data from sales and influencer and combined it and created the score. So the score is basically a weighted score of the factors on the page that impact how my videos do. And so then when people do product research now, the extension much like Jungle Scout Helium 10 is visible on Just about any page on Amazon, right? So wherever you're at, you have all of that information at your fingertips to be like, oh, that could be an interesting product. Let me go look at that category and those sorts of things. And it pulls forward like, what is the Influencer Commission on this, right? How many influencers are already on there? Is there that Upper carousel that makes my video do much better and it just pulls all of that information to embed cards and then also in a drop-down to make it really easy for everyone. Unknown Speaker: What pulls sales too? Speaker 1: So you know, am I, should I be doing this with, how many does this sell a month? What percentage? So you have an idea of what, what the opportunity there is as well. And so then can I, is there a button where I can save them out? Like making my, make me a list of here's the 20 that I need to go buy, or does it hit a button and it automatically adds it to my cart so I can go buy it and have it shipped? Or how does that, how's the next step work? Speaker 2: Not quite yet. The part where we do have export capabilities around pulling that, but from where you were just saying, from where you're at, you would then basically create a wish list or an ideal list or track the product in a product tracker like Helium 10 or Jungle Scout, right? A lot of influencers cross tools. So that's how I would do that or like our pop-up will stay open. So we have a lot of people who will go and just like open every listing off a search page and then click through them individually. So there's a number of different ways that you can do that piece. Speaker 1: And so what does it take? So if I do this, I do my homework and I find 20 opportunities that look pretty good to me. Does it give me an estimate like you could potentially could make this much money or is it just, it just says these are the good opportunities based on a score? Speaker 2: It just says basically these are the good opportunities based on like on the score. Speaker 1: Okay, so if then if I pick those and I buy them or obtain them somehow, then how long does it take to typically shoot a video? This tent setup video sounds like that was pretty involved. I mean, it's worth it. It sounds like you made five grand, but how much time does it really take to make a video on each of these things? Now, I could see that if you don't know if it's shooting darts, you're just going to bang through them. But now that you know, okay, this is a good opportunity and let me put some effort into this, what does it really take to do that? Speaker 2: Well, I mean, first of all, please never go watch my tent video. It was one of my very first ones. I was learning to edit my own videos. It's not great, honestly. I would never be like, this is how everybody should produce videos. But it really depends, right? So like there are some videos where I can sit basically with my iPhone and one of the plug-in like lapel mics and do a voiceover for like unboxing a product and that is a good amount of value for like anybody looking at it. And then there are things like my under the desk treadmill or the tent, right? Where it's like, I'm going to do like B-roll footage of me setting it up. And then I'm going to do like a talking head video where the B-roll is next to me and the talking head is here and I'm just talking about the product, like inputting B-roll as it corresponds with how I'm talking about the product. Speaker 1: So that whole process, how long did it take to do that tent video from the time to shooting it, setting up, figuring out, you got to figure it out yourself too. Like you're reading the manual and the manual might be in Chinglish or something. And you're trying, you know, it might be like an IKEA thing and you're like, yeah, put it together backwards the first time or something. And, and so you get that, then you got to shoot it, then you got to edit it. So you're in this thing several hours. Speaker 2: Yeah. So I do, I like to do a little bit more in depth, right? So, um, there are people that just do straight, like they hold it up, they talk about it, whatever. But for that video, specifically the tent, let's say now I had already, I already knew how to set this up, so I didn't buy this for this. I had this tent and did the review, right? And so I probably spent like 30 minutes out on the back patio, like taking it down, putting it up like a couple different times for the B roll. And then probably another like 20 minutes shooting the talking head portion of it where I just talked about it. And then it probably took me an embarrassing amount of time to edit myself. So I don't even want to guess that. But let's say I had probably all in under three hours in that video. Speaker 1: So that's not bad. Three hours for five grand. That's not too bad. That's a pretty good payday right there. I'll trade that. Speaker 2: And I still make money off of it. It's not like and then it stops. It's still on Amazon. It still pulls in commission. Speaker 1: So, do you see it like the example I gave earlier where it trails down? Because as other videos come in there, they can take some of the market share. So, it's good to use a tool like yours, Fluencer Fruit, to actually get in there first and try to beat. Now, as more people know about Fluencer Fruit, that means more people, it's going to become, you know, just like on Amazon, everybody's going to do a garlic press or everybody's going to do a dog bowl or whatever. So, how are you going to Navigate that or is that? Good luck, everybody. Speaker 2: Well, it is a little different than like the sellers, right? So it's like the sellers, if you're launching into the garlic press world, right? And it's super competitive, but for influencers, we're creating content around products that sellers are launching, right? So if we think that like from the state of the seller report, the most recent one that I saw, like 3,700 sellers a day launch on Amazon still, like it's still, It's like, have we saturated yoga mats? Yes. Like I will probably never create a shoppable video for a yoga mat because there's already 10, 15, 100 influencers who have created content for that. But there are a bunch of untapped areas in Amazon where I can still go. Most recently, like I did one of those old school seller techniques, right? Where you go to bestsellers, you go into a subcategory, you look for something that maybe is selling well, but isn't like super competitive yet. And I found a bunch of like essential oils that were selling like 70,000 a month. And had no influencer videos on them. So I grabbed a bunch of essential oils and a diffuser and did a bunch of content for those to test and see, you know, but there are still places that you're going to find that are not saturated. Speaker 1: Are there any things that you shouldn't do in these videos that Amazon's like, you can't do this, this or this, or there's some do's and don'ts? Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So the things that we most often see people get like rejected videos for, the one is medical advice. And that can be like you use the word bio or eco-friendly, like there are some of the AI triggers that Amazon doesn't like those for some reason. So you can play with those. If they get rejected, just do them again for your first three videos. When you're doing that initial approval, I would stay away from those. Personal information. So a lot of people start to do an unboxing video with the external Amazon box, which has your address on it or QR codes or barcodes. Just start with the actual like product box, not with anything else. And make sure that your background is pretty bland because you'd be surprised the number of times that people are like, Oh, I got declined. And it's because they have like something on their refrigerator behind them that gives away personal information. Like the AI is pretty solid about finding those things. If you're filming outside, you can't have a license plates or house numbers. Speaker 1: So you can't be wearing like an IZOD shirt or polo shirt probably either, some sort of branded shirt. Like they do that on TV. You got to wear like a plain, you know, like TV shows or game shows. It has to be a plain outfit that doesn't give away the brand. You can't take your blue baton. Speaker 2: Actually, you can wear IZOD and stuff. They don't flag us for that. It's just like the personal information, the medical information. The one that we're starting to see a little bit more of is like, It's the violence one. So they've just changed some of their terms of service around how you can do like conceal and carry or those types of products. So forever, of course, you were never able to actually show like the gun or the weapon that it was holding. So people would do it with like nerf guns and those sorts of things. So, we are seeing some current shift to that where they changed a term and I'm not exactly positive what it is, but people are starting to pop like this refers to violence in some way more often now. So, just something to be cognitive of. Those are the three that I see most often when people are like, hey, can you watch this and see why it gave me this flag? Speaker 1: So it's a better opportunity and something where that needs detailed explanation, like setting up a tent or something that's a little bit more complicated. Do you find that those typically, if you can do a good job at teaching or explaining or demonstrating, that those typically will make you more money than something that's just like, look, squeeze this garlic press and stuff falls out. Is there anything to that or it doesn't really matter? Speaker 2: For me, those have performed really well. I think there's some, you know, it goes a little bit both ways here, right? Like some people play the volume game and they're like, I don't care how much I make, I'm just going to crank out as long as I can get that placement. And then some people are like, I'm going to go over here and do a little bit more in depth. And the way that I like to explain this to people is we know about Amazon, their main focus is the shopper and they're ruthless and prioritizing content, layout, whatever the case is, in a way that they think will be the most beneficial for the shopper. And so when I think about the content that I'm creating, If I can help somebody make a buying decision with a shoppable video by showing them how that garlic press works, Then I'm going to do that, right? Because it's the garlic press. Actually, I just did a can opener because we needed one for the house. And so we bought a Gorilla Grip can opener. My husband now also knows how to like search. He's got the tool on his computer too. He's like, all right, it's an 82. The banana store is an 82. I'm buying this one. Is that okay? You know, and then when we get it, I'll create a shoppable video for it. And like talk, I did an unboxing to show like initial impressions and then I did one showing like me using the can opener, right? And now we had a very old can opener. So I was wildly impressed by this can opener, but because I think my other one was terrible, but yeah, so there are, as long as you're creating value, like you're going to probably make money off of it, assuming all of the other factors, like it has the upper carousel, you get placement, all of those things. Speaker 1: Interesting. So do the videos have to be in English? Because I'm thinking there's a major opportunity. I'm just brainstorming here. Spanish is the second largest language in the US. 60 million people speak Spanish at home. There's a lot of Spanish keywords on Amazon, a lot of Spanish speakers. And also, you know, they speak English and they search in English. Someone search in Spanish. If they were on a listing that everything was in English and the second video in that carousel was in Spanish, that's going to appeal to them. They're going to click on that and buy based on that. They're going to say, this relates to me. This is me. I understand this. I would think someone could have a major, major advantage on certain products. Um, that have, you know, if you could tie fluencer fruit into like this also ranks for 26 different Spanish keywords or something like that, that could be major opportunity. I'm just thinking out loud here on something. Speaker 2: I think at the moment, so I have to go back and look, I don't think there's anywhere in terms of service for influencers that says specifically you cannot do it in another language. I don't see them. So I don't know and I haven't, I am not fluent. I am just enough to be able to order my croquetas when I'm in Miami. Like, you know, I can order. Speaker 1: Come on, you're a Miami girl. Miami, you can't go to the grocery store without speaking Spanish. Speaker 2: I can talk about food. Speaker 1: Miami is the capital of South America. Speaker 2: I mean, you have to, right? But I mean, so I can speak about food, but I'm not fluent. But I haven't seen anybody do it, but I also have not tested it. So it would be pretty interesting to see if you could get those videos to rank. I think strategically you would want to be, well, I don't know about that. Speaker 1: Maybe do it in both languages, do it English and you know, go back and forth or something in the same video. Speaker 2: Subtitles in Spanish might be really helpful. Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Speaker 2: I think about this too because, so shoppable videos, Amazon Influencer, the program is available in multiple of the marketplaces for Amazon. So like India, UK, a couple others, right? But shoppable videos are only available in the US marketplace right now. Speaker 1: These are considered shoppable videos. On Amazon Influencer creating shoppable videos. Speaker 2: Yes. So we create shoppable content. So we can also do shoppable pictures. We can do shoppable videos and we can do live streams and all of our content is shoppable. Speaker 1: Where do the pictures show up? Speaker 2: Um, so the pictures are pretty interesting, actually, like if you had told me initially, you'd be like, Oh, yeah, you should definitely do pictures of everything that you're doing. I would have been like, that's dumb. Nobody's buying off of these. But then Amazon launched the inspire feed. And, you know, that's their effort to talk. Yeah, compete with tik tok and Instagram and everything else. Well, in addition to the inspire feed, they have the discover feed. Are you familiar with that one, too? Speaker 1: No, I'm not. I will be now. Speaker 2: I'll tell you where to find it. Speaker 1: I'm going to discover it now. Speaker 2: Yeah. It's specifically like fashion and beauty, right? And so like if you go on your phone into the categories, fashion and beauty, scroll down, it's discover. Not super easy to just find the feed. Like inspire is just the icon at the bottom of the app. The discover actual feed you have to look for, but where they're using the discover feed is to pull fashion and beauty photos, shoppable photos onto the product listings. So fashion and shoes does not historically have an upper carousel. So when you scroll down on the app, about halfway down, there's like a discover more or something like that. And those are influencer pictures in that shirt, let's say. So, Amazon is doing some really interesting things with their placements for shoppable content. And sometimes it takes us a minute to find, you'll be like, oh, all of a sudden I'm selling a ton of this gold sequined shirt that I have one picture of from when I was in Vegas. And I just was like, oh, I'll upload this because I bought this shirt on Amazon. And all of a sudden I'm selling a ton of them. So then we do a little research to see if we can find where Amazon's placing it. And I found it on the product listing page in the Discover feed. Speaker 1: So people, I was talking to someone else that helps some people do this and they said that it seems like beginners might be able, if they work this and do it right, they might be able to make a few thousand bucks a month, but some of their, you know, maybe, and this is no promise of success or anything here, we're just throwing some numbers out, but they're saying that about 10% of the people that they know and that they work with make over 10 grand a month. They said they need about a thousand videos up on average to make, you might hit one out of the park, like with your 10 or something. But on average, if you have about a thousand videos up, you can probably make 10 grand or more per month. Now you teach people how to do this, right? Not only do you have the software, but you also have a course that's like A to Z on everything on how to get approved, to how to do this. So if someone's listening and wants to do this as a side hustle or maybe someone in their family, this is a great little project for them. That would be a great way to get indoctrinated, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, so my course basically takes people from you have an engaged audience to monetization, right? And the tool then is kind of like we teach the basics of product research and how to use the tool. And then like for the scaling pieces, that next piece. So we have a ton of input from people who are doing very sophisticated product research, including the group that you ran into. And other influencers who have had a lot of input into kind of like from the MVP that I launched to where the tool is now to help it get better and better at helping people who are scaling their content for more and more income. Speaker 1: And there's no other tool like this. You got the market to yourself right now, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: That's awesome. So if people want to find out what's the best, spell this out for them so that the people that are driving or listening to this on the treadmill right now or something, make sure they don't misunderstand us. How do they, how do they find you? Speaker 2: Yeah. So if you go to, I've got a landing page for you and we can put it in the notes, but if you go to fluencerfruit.com slash Kevin King, It will give you the information, but there's information there if you're a content creator about how to get signed up for the course. If you're already an influencer, there's information there about how to get started with the extension to help make your product research easier. And then if you're a brand, I also helped on that end, helping people work with Amazon influencers for shoppable content for their products. Speaker 1: So if I'm a seller listening to this and I want to come to you, I don't want to reach out and use all these different user generated content services and sites. I can come to you and say, this is what I got my yoga mat. Can you help me find some people that will create some badass videos to put up on my my listing? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And they can use those maybe on their own social feeds if they want to and inspire and wherever else. And so you kind of orchestrate that as well. Speaker 2: Yeah. I provide the white glove, you know, like if you don't want to go clicking through influencers and reaching out or, you know, finding a service that gives you an ongoing commitment, like those sorts of things. I have over 100 influencers that I work with regularly. They're all vetted for content and quality. And I know if they have Kids the right age or if they're specialized in technologies or if they have dogs, cats, boats, motorcycles, anything else that might be specialized that your brand, you know, needs somebody to have something active in their house, you know, I can match you with them. Speaker 1: So what's that? I'm assuming there's a fee for it. So they make their commission by being the influencer, but then is there a fee for that as well? Speaker 2: Yeah. We just do a flat fee per video. So initially I was like, Oh, I'll sell packages. But every brand's listing is so specifically different that like when we do the audit, we go through and I'm like, actually you really only need four as opposed to somebody else probably needs five or so on and so forth. Like, sometimes you go look and if you are a brand and you haven't looked at your listing lately, go take a look at that carousel and see if you've got influencers already on your product listing. But you know, sometimes that happens, right? I'm auditing a listing with a brand and I'm like, you've actually got two influencers and two brands. I would fill out this carousel. Let's add two more sort of deal. So we just do a flat fee per influencer video. Speaker 1: Where do you see this going? You see this as a major opportunity for a lot of people or is there just a lot of hype around it? And it's really a lot of hard work and you hear these success stories, a guy making 13 grand and 10% of the people making five figures or more a month. But that's just most people, they just bomb or most people, if they follow the right formula, this can be fairly good money for them. Speaker 2: I think it has the opportunity like to be all of the things that people want it to be, right? And I think it comes down to like doing it with intention, doing product research and being, you know, specific about how you're going to do it. And also, let's be honest, you have to be willing a little bit to ride the Amazon roller coaster because you are putting content up on the Amazon platform that they ultimately, you know, control where it goes. Um, but when I think about like where the influencer program is, And put it in like a seller timeline, we're probably at that 2016 mark, right? Where like up to this point, people have been able to be like, here's a video about this product and they've made money hand over fist, right? And people have been getting better at it and learning how to do it well within the ecosystem. And now Amazon is building out like terms of service and a little bit more structure for what looks like longevity, right? So, it's not going to be as easy as launching a product on Amazon in 2012 and making a million dollars, but it's also going to still be an opportunity, just one that has a better built-out system. So, Amazon's putting a lot into the creator university right now and making sure that people have resources and trying to really define things. So, they're at that point where it's like, this isn't going away. It's going to continue to be an awesome opportunity if you know what you're doing and if you're willing to pay attention to Amazon's rules and grow with them. Speaker 1: Awesome. Liz, this has been fascinating. This has been really cool. I really appreciate you spending the time today. Make sure, everybody, you go to FluencerFruit.com. FluencerFruit.com. Just check out the tools, her training. If you want her to help you with anything on connecting with influencers, I think you're onto something big here and I think there's massive opportunity for some people out there to change their lives. Speaker 2: Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate you having me. Speaker 1: Awesome. Affiliate marketing to influencer to you name it. It's just an amazing opportunity. There's never been anything like this in the history of business and I think this one is what we talked about today with Liz is one of the greatest that's been around as an opportunity for people that don't have a lot of money. As long as you got a little bit of following, you can do a little bit of social media to get approved, you can create some amazing opportunities for yourself or your family just by doing this either as a side hustle or Or having people in your family, your kids or your spouse or friends get involved in this and maybe make an extra $500,000 a month or maybe be one of the successful 10% that make five figures a month just doing this. Great opportunity. I hope you enjoyed this episode and got some good stuff out of it. We'll be back again next week with an amazing story from Some guys, two different guys that have an interesting take on how they're buying businesses. One of them is from the Ukraine, the other one's from the UK. It's really fascinating what they're doing and how they're helping. People in this space that are having a little bit of trouble and in Amazon So hopefully you'll be around for that episode as well before we go. Don't forget coming up in Next month in February. I have the billion-dollar seller summit virtual edition February 21st and 22nd It's online and go to billion-dollar seller summit comm to get more information on that Before we leave today, I just want to say again, Happy New Year. Make sure you go out there and seize the day. Make your life extraordinary. As you're setting your goals for this year, seize the day and make your life extraordinary. See you again next week.